"Part of me does--the part of me that responds to the truth, which is going on all the time, with us if we like, without us if not, but which is surely there. It's because I know it's there, even though my longings are out of key with it, that I still say that about the soul." They went up into the house, and that night Georgie, whether because some feminine jealousy that he talked so much with Judy was stinging at her, or whether because even without that spur she would have felt some old stirring of warmth, was sweeter to him than for long past. As he held her against him he was aware that it was not so much passion he felt as that deeper, sweeter something Judy had spoken of, and for the first time he felt free to savour it instead of half-resenting it as a loss of glamour. This was a satisfying companionship he had of Georgie, a sweet thing without which life would have been emptier, even if it settled no problems and left untouched the lonely spaces which no human foot can range in their entirety, though in youth some one step may make them tremble throughout their shining floors.... It was good, though it was not the whole of life, and as he took it he gave thanks for the varied relationships in the world which added so to its richness, even if they could only impinge upon its outer edges. CHAPTER V THE PARSON'S PHILOSOPHY That summer the Parson began to show signs of breaking up. Judith had been struck by the change in him when she came down, a change less plain to those who were seeing him often, but startlingly distinct to her who had not seen him for so long. She took up her friendship, that had begun on that evening when he had found her in the church, in the place where it had left off, and this was somewhat to the credit of both, since it transpired that during the past year Judy had been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Judith was quiet about her religion as she had been about her love. She had not accepted it in any spirit of there being nothing else left for her now in life, as the vulgar-natured would have supposed had they known her history; neither was it because, most frequent accusation of the ignorant, it appealed to the sensuous side of her. For ritual she cared as little as the Parson, and by preference she always went to low Mass instead of to a high Mass. She had found something that for her had been hitherto hidden, and Boase saw it and was glad. It was noteworthy that it was to him and not to Ishmael she spoke of it. Georgie, with all her dearness, was almost too prosperous to understand. Judy radiated an inner joy that Ishmael had not attained and that Georgie had never felt the need of. That joy had not been won until her feet had trod stranger ways than her friends at Cloom ever imagined. Often she was seized by a pang of conscience that they should admire her as a creature above everything honest and courageous ... for there was more to know of her now than her relation with Killigrew. She